Air Mattress
by alectheta
Summary: Two akward detectives and an air mattress.


Ellie's body felt like a sack of potatoes. If she hadn't been so tired, she would have laughed at the image of someone dragging her along behind himself. When she thought of that someone as gangly Alec Hardy, it drew a small chuckle out of her that quickly drowned in heaustion. With relief, Ellie let the toothbrush drop into the glass on the counter and turned off the bathroom light.

Dragging one hand along the wall, she made her way to the adjoining room in the darkness. Finally, she would be able to lay down and close her eyes in a probably futile attempt to sleep undisturbed by nightmares. Still, just being able to lay down sounded heavenly. The white sheets on Ellie's half of the air mattress glowed invitingly in the moonlight. She stood at the end of the bed and with a big sigh of relief, she let herself relax and her body fall forward. Sinking into the soft mattress felt like falling into a long missed embrace. Just as Ellie was relishing the feeling of comfort that came with that thought and started to giggle at her own foolishness, she heard a panicked gasp from the lump under the sheets on her left.

Alec Hardy had been dreaming. As so often, the healthy, glowing picture of his daughter Daisy suddenly morphed into Pippa Gillespie's bloated, pale face as he was desperately trying to get to the shore of the river he found her in despite the dead girl's weight in his arms. Just as only one more step separated him from the grass, the ground shook and both he and the cold, wet weight in his arms were catapulted into the air.

The moment Alec's analytical brain complained about the unlikeliness of that happening, he awoke with a start and heard himself gasp. His eyes flew open and while they adjusted to the dim, silvery light coming in from the window, he became aware that he was gently swaying. The initial confusion gave way to the memory that the Latimers had kindly provided them with an air mattress to sleep on until he had found a flat and until the roof on Ellie's house was fixed. Right, Ellie was here as well. Or she should be. She'd still been chatting with Beth when he'd escaped to the bed to extricate himself from the necessity to figure out what and especially who was ok to mention in the social minefield that Broadchurch had become following the Latimer's son's murder. He slowly looked to his right, careful to only move his head as to not disturb Ellie if she was sleeping for once.

She was lying flat with her face pressed down into the mattress. As he looked at her, he became aware that she was shaking. Oh no. Was she crying? What was he going to do? The last time they'd seen each other in person before today, Ellie had made it very clear that any physical proximity freaked her out if it came from him. In his best attempt to copy his own grumpy, reclusive self from months ago, Alec rasped:

"Miller, are you alright?"

Oh no, she'd awoken Alec. Had he even been asleep? Even if he had, herself dropping onto the mattress like the sack of potatoes she'd felt like would have woken him up. Ellie did her best to calm down and answer him, but when she raised her head and saw Alec's concerned, but from the way it was pressed into the pillow also slightly hamster-y face looking back at her, she descended into another fit of giggles. Once she had composed herself enough to look up again, Alec had raised an eyebrow at her. The seriousness of his expression was somewhat thwarted by the smile that had begun to spread from one corner of his mouth and that was already obvious from the crinkles around his eyes that Ellie had only noticed after Alec had survived a life-saving operation.

She drew in a long breath and dried the tears in her eyes with a sleeve of her pajama shirt.

"Yeah, I'm alright, just really, really tired and this is all so weird, the two of us being here of all places, and on an air mattress that sways like a boat, which you hate… It's so surreal I couldn't help but laugh…"

Ellie didn't tell him about the feeling of someone holding her, how she missed it, although if she had let herself, she suspected that he would have understood. She couldn't allow herself to see him as the caring person she knew from experience that he was, or she might start crying again. She was done with sobbing her heart out. She was putting her life back together and that was that.

The smile on Alec's face had vanished. He was still looking at her, what she could make out of his features in the shadows serious.

"Good night, Miller!"

He'd said it with so much intensity, both in his eyes and his voice, much gentler than usual, that she knew it meant more than the words said. Ellie knew it was his way of wishing her luck in reclaiming her life while acknowledging because of his own experiences that it wouldn't be easy. Which was why it meant much more to her than anything anybody else could have said. Oh no, she wasn't going to start crying now after all.

"Good night, sir," she said towards the strip of light coming in from the window.


End file.
